Monday, April 13, 2015

Mayor Lee threatens Peskin supporters

“I am paying attention,” the mayor told the assembled guests at a closed-door meeting Tuesday at the Hanson Bridgett law offices, according to people who were there. Just to drive home the message, Lee had his chief of staff, Steve Kawa, standing by his side. The bigwigs could be forgiven if they picked up an unspoken message that city favors would be scarce if they contribute to Peskin...The mayor grew a set of fangs last week, warning a collection of the city’s business, labor and tech leaders that there would be consequences if they help the former Board of Supervisors president’s bid to unseat Lee’s handpicked District Three incumbent in November, Supervisor Julie Christensen.

Does the mayor mean that he now routinely gives "favors" to "business, labor and tech leaders," like tax breaks and contracts? Not exactly a great sales pitch for Supervisor Christensen's political independence, since Mayor Lee clearly is counting on her to help him continue to give favors to "bigwigs" and special interests:

Kawa, who told us he had attended on personal time and wasn’t on the city clock, told the gathering that they should “not live in fear and let Aaron Peskin scare people into supporting him,” those in attendance said.

Kawa punched out on the time clock in the mayor's office before coming to the meeting? Ridiculous. Like every chief of staff everywhere, Kawa is always on the clock.

Rather than let "Aaron Peskin scare people into supporting him"---a preposterous idea in the first place---people should instead fear City Hall!

This just makes the mayor and Kawa look dumb, not tough, which is unlikely to endear the mayor's candidate to voters in District 3. A couple of possible campaign slogans: "Bigwigs support Christensen!" and "Support Christensen or you'll be sorry!"

And tech investor Ron Conway, one of the mayor’s biggest backers, urged the business community to step up to the plate for Christensen — saying there would be a backlash if he and his tech friends wrote the checks for the mayor’s candidate...

Conway, who inadvertently helped elect Mirkarimi sheriff, has already let the backlash cat out of the bag: he and other city "bigwigs" support Christensen and oppose Peskin. With his goofy chest-thumping, the mayor provides the Peskin campaign with an issue.